Along the eastern shore of Great Night Lake, the waters gradually narrowed, no longer possessing the vast, surging grandeur of the lake's heart.
Shallows and wetlands lined the shore, thick with reeds, their waterways winding into a tangled net. At dawn and dusk, mist rose from the lake and spread in hazy clouds, shrouding the area in an indistinct blur. Boats traveling through it could lose their way with the slightest lapse of care.
The eastern shore lay within Tongquan Commandery, and the Yang Family's ancestral estate stood on the most fertile plain in the commandery's heartland.
The Yang Family had developed several dozen miles of land into a thriving market town. Streets and alleys crisscrossed it, shops stood in rows, and cultivators and merchants from every direction streamed through without end. Its prosperity far surpassed that of the few Market Wards under the Ning Family's rule.
At the center of this town stood the Lion Tower.
The Lion Tower did not actually house any lions. It was simply a three-story wooden building painted vermilion, with sweeping eaves and upturned corners. Eight ever-burning lamps hung beneath its eaves, never extinguished by day or night.
A pair of blue-stone guardian beasts stood before the tower. Their design was archaic, their age unknowable. Wind and rain had worn the patterns on their stone bodies somewhat indistinct, yet they still radiated a weighty, oppressive presence.
The Lion Tower was the largest trading venue in the Yang Family's possession.
Pills, magical artifacts, spiritual materials, rare ores—whatever a cultivator needed, there was almost nothing here that could not be bought, provided one could afford the price.
The Yang Family did not directly participate in the trading, serving only as intermediaries and guarantors. Buyers and sellers alike had to obey the Yang Family's rules once they